


Ghostlight

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified, Supernatural
Genre: Adultery, Crossover, Gen, Ghosts, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A weekend hike goes horribly wrong for Raylan and Loretta, because nothing in Harlan County can be simple, can it? Now, their only way off the mountain is two shady characters from Boyd’s past, three shovels, two shotguns, and an antique iron poker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghostlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piper/gifts).



> Spoilers: Spoilers through season 2 of Justified; set shortly after season 2. No specific spoilers after season 5 of Supernatural; set sometime after episode 6.12.
> 
> Written for cajunchick411/Piper for the 2011 xover_exchange on LJ.
> 
> Thanks to betas rillalicious, write_light, and abraxas

  
Raylan asked Loretta a few weeks before the date of his transfer whether her daddy ever took her on any hikes through the mountains and hollers in Harlan.

“Not really,” she’d said, dragging her straw in a slow circle through her strawberry milkshake. “Only to the crop and back, then when Mama was sick, and after, I went by myself.”

“But that’s, what, a ten, twenty minute walk?” Raylan had drunk his own shake a while ago, but they still had a basket of fries between them to finish off.

“There about,” Loretta shrugged. “It’s pretty though, in the summer time.”

“You wanna take a hike with me, maybe next week? There’re some nice views ‘round here we can get to with almost no trouble at all.”

Loretta looked up at him like he was proposing she join the cheerleading squad or hand over her cell phone or something equally tragic.

“We could take a lunch with us too,” he caught the plea in his voice and tried to rein it in a bit.

Really, he just wanted to do this with Loretta so she didn’t lose her roots entirely to Lexington and her new foster home. He was glad they were treating the girl well. But he thought about how having Harlan as home inside his head, the good and the bad, defined him and he couldn’t help but want that same hardscrabble backbone to come in useful for her in the future.

He wondered where she learned that long stare she fixed him with as she replied, “Sure, Raylan. If you want.”

The next weekend, with Winona’s grudging permission-- not that he needed it--Raylan took Loretta out past Harlan towards Wallins Creek, parking at the nature preserve’s trailhead. When he was a kid, things hadn’t been so official, but he remembered that out this way a small trail wound around Watts Creek and a longer one a little ways up to a pretty outcrop.

Fall was settling in a little early and the late September day was chilly enough for heavier coats even in the middle of the afternoon. Raylan didn’t like how late they were starting, but things had apparently been a little chaotic at the home that morning and he’d been told by Jenny, Loretta’s warm but put-upon foster mother, not to come until after lunch. They’d brought the picnic anyway.

Loretta seemed considerably more excited about the hike than she had the previous week, but Raylan thought it might just be about getting out of the house for a while.

He liked spending time with the girl, despite their visits being the social worker’s idea to give her some stability after all the shit that went down and all the moving she’d had to do over the past year. Loretta was smarter than he’d been as a teenager and wiser, too. But she was prone to sulking, though he really couldn’t fault her. He liked to think his stupid jokes and quiet presence made things a little easier for her. He even let her wear the hat sometimes.

As they walked from the parking area, Raylan glanced back at a familiar-looking truck, but shook his head, dismissing the idea that he’d know anyone hiking this stretch on this particular day. It was too great a coincidence.

They’d walked about half the trail before he spotted Boyd. Well, he should say Loretta spotted him.

“Hey,” she said quietly, “ain’t that a friend of yours? I remember seein’ him an’ you talking at Mags’ that one time, before he disappeared in the house with her and the mine lady.”

Raylan stopped dead in his tracks, clamping a hand down hard on the girl’s shoulder. He looked through the trees to see Boyd ahead of them on the trail, walking with slow purpose. He watched him veer suddenly off the path, away from the creek and down into the holler.

Raylan wanted to put his hand on his sidearm, but he also really didn’t want to scare Loretta. “All right, honey,” he said, just as quiet. “I know these woods pretty well, so don’t worry. That’s Boyd Crowder and we’re gonna follow him a ways. Not for long, just ‘til I see what he’s doin’ out here.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she looked intrigued instead of frightened or worried. They put the bag of food down at the edge of the trail, took two water bottles out, one for each of them, and set off after Boyd. Raylan made sure Loretta was walking behind him and tried not to think about how potentially stupid this decision was.

They made it maybe another half mile before Boyd got wind of them, which Raylan thought was fairly impressive.

“Now, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that was Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens following me through these woods with a waif watching his back. Or has your shadow shrunk since I last saw you, Raylan?” Boyd turned and called out to them through the trees.

“Boyd,” Raylan called back and raised his hand to the brim of his hat. Sometimes he liked being a cliché. His other hand held Loretta securely behind him. “What are you doing out here in these woods?”

“I could ask you that very same question, my friend. Come a little closer and perhaps we can converse like reasonable people.”

Raylan had long since stopped trying to convince Boyd that they weren’t anything like friends, but since they’d already been discovered, he saw no reason not to lessen the distance between them. He walked forward, until they were about twenty feet apart. He let Loretta stand next to him, but he had his hand on his sidearm for sure now.

“You don’t like the path, Boyd?” Raylan asked, keeping his tone very neutral.

Boyd smiled--it was his I’m-smarter-than-you-but-I-like-you-anyway-smile. “I like it fine. I’ve got some business out this way, is all. Would you like to come, Raylan?”

Raylan hoped that the grinding of his teeth wasn’t visible, or audible. “If you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I did,” Boyd responded quickly and cordially. “Don’t be concerned about your young friend either. My business is purely social in nature.”

“Social, huh,” Raylan mused as they began to walk.

He saw Loretta shooting glances between the two of them, landing longer and more focused on Boyd. Raylan caught her eye and gave her a little glare, to his amusement, she glared right back. “So were you two married in a previous life, or what?” she asked with a little barb to her voice.

Boyd laughed. It was immediate and loud, but only for a moment and not harsh, something like a thunderclap and a wide grin followed it like the rain. Raylan was struck by how long it had been since he’d heard that sound, untainted by irony or sorrow. He shook off that feeling of being taken back in time and glared at Loretta again, but she was smirking at Boyd who’d turned around to appraise her.

“You’re McCready’s girl. The one Mags was grooming up,” he said flatly and Raylan knew if Loretta had ever doubted that was what had been going on, she wouldn’t any longer. “What’re you doing traipsing around these hollers with a U.S. Marshal? You been deputized like my friend Dewey?” Boyd turned his smile on Raylan and it was ironic once again.

“It’s Loretta,” the girl replied, as she stepped carefully over a fallen branch. “And we’re hiking. Raylan and I just… hang out, sometimes. He’s cool, I guess.” She said the last with a smile just for him. His coolness was something he tried unsuccessfully to defend every so often.

Boyd laughed again, this time more quietly, but his grin stayed just the same. “He was a lot cooler in high school when he was hitting home runs and running moonshine through my daddy’s backwoods.”

“Oh yeah?” Loretta asked, turning to Raylan.

“And I think we’re done talkin’ about the past now, Boyd.”

“Maybe you are, Raylan,” Boyd replied, but said nothing else.

They walked for maybe another half hour and Raylan was beginning to regret his decision to bring them out here after Boyd. It had already been late when they spotted him and the darkness came early to these hollers. But finally, even as Raylan had the inkling to stop this charade in its tracks, Boyd slowed as they came to where the trees thinned and opened out into a firebreak, presumably for telephone and electric wires.

Down the hill from where they stood was an old dirt road. Raylan knew there used to be a small mine out this way and the road was the route the coal trucks and some of the workers took to come in and out. The rest had lived in the holler and up on the mountain and walked to work through the very trails they’d been hiking.

On the road someone had parked a car. It was a big black classic model, though Raylan couldn’t tell which one specifically from so far away. He saw Boyd smile, just softly, when he looked down on it. The people the man was meeting were already there.

Raylan put his hand on Loretta’s should again and held on when she tried to shake him off. He was glad she had the good sense not to say anything about it.

Two men emerged from the woods on the opposite side of the firebreak. They were both tall and broad shouldered, though one stood like a mountain beside the other. They had shot guns in their hands and wore dark outdoor clothing. They looked like hard men, like outlaws.

“If you knowingly brought this girl into danger, Boyd, I will put you down and I will put both your friends down before they can load two in those barrels, I swear to God,” Raylan spoke softly into Boyd’s ear from behind.

“I did not,” Boyd said, not turning to face him. “It was you put her on this path. But I too swear on my life, Raylan, I am only here to deliver some news.”

“Then why do they have guns?”

“They always have guns.”

The men walked forward and so did Boyd, Raylan and Loretta following and a good pace behind, but not so far he couldn’t hear what they said.

“Who are your friends, Boyd?” The shorter one spoke first, his voice was gruff, his hands tight on his weapon.

Boyd smiled, easy and calm. “I had company on the trail, boys, what can I say?” He spread his hands helplessly.

The shorter one raised his eyebrows and suggested, “Maybe… ‘No, you can’t come with me?’” Loretta stifled a chuckle.

Boyd just smiled a little wider, as if humoring the man that he would ever do such an impolite thing. “Even if I hadn’t invited them, I don’t think my friends would have taken no for an answer. What do you think, Raylan?”

“Unfortunately, no, I don’t think I would have,” Raylan kept his voice just as light and his hand above his holster. He saw the men register his badge as well.

“I didn’t think you ran with that crowd, Boyd,” the shorter one groused but the taller one nudged him like they ought to get on with things.

“Where’s your dad? Or Bowman? We didn’t think you were working with them anymore.” The taller one spoke like he knew exactly who it was Boyd had been working with instead.

Raylan realized just what news it was Boyd had to give. He almost felt sorry until he wondered how these boys were going to react to hearing whatever illegal dealings they thought they were going to have would probably be postponed if not cancelled altogether. He pulled Loretta closer behind him and felt her peeking around his jacket.

“I ain’t working with them,” Boyd replied. “I’m sorry to have to tell you boys this, but they’re both dead since you last came through. And Daddy’s contacts are mostly gone, at least for what you’re looking for. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

“You came all the way out here to tell us that?” It was the tall one speaking again and it looked as though there was honest grief in his expression, though Raylan really had no idea why. “Why didn’t you just not come? If you were a no show we would have just moved on.”

“I couldn’t know that, Sam. Last time your old man blew through Harlan, he knocked down doors looking for my daddy until Bowman told him that Bo was in jail,” Boyd said defensively. “I got people to look after and my own interests as well. I can’t have that shit.”

“We’re not our dad,” the other one said, like all he ever did was tell people that.

Boyd crossed his arms. “Well, neither am I and I can’t help you. Now, I said I’m sorry and that really is my final word on the matter.”

“Can’t help or don’t want to?”

“Dean,” the taller one, Sam, warned.

“What is it you boys are after?” Raylan finally jumped in with the question, taking a step closer to the conversation.

“Raylan,” Boyd said, as it was apparently now his turn for warnings. “That’s not a question you want answered. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of reason to haul me in sometime real soon, but these boys aren’t actually committing any wrongdoing today, so why don’t you let them off the hook?”

Raylan ignored Boyd’s question and looked carefully at the two men in front of him. He raised his hand from his sidearm and pointed, first at the tall brother then at the shorter one, identifying them. “Sam… and Dean. Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Winchester, now would it?”

Dean’s eyes flashed angry, Sam’s worried, and neither of them answered. Though, the way Boyd shifted on his feet made Raylan certain he was right. They were still armed, so he decided not to pull out his gun immediately, but he rested his hand on the weapon regardless. “I’m sorry boys, but I’m gonna have to bring you in.”

“What?” Boyd cried.

“On whose authority?” Sam asked at the same moment, his voice harsh, while Dean’s hands tightened around his shotgun.

Raylan, regretfully forced to take his hand off Loretta’s shoulder, indicated the badge on his hip. “On the authority of the United States Marshal Service. I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and you, Sam and Dean Winchester, are wanted by the Federal Government on multiple counts of felony murder and for questioning in the disappearance and suspected homicide of Special Agent Vicktor Henricksen of the FBI.”

He heard Dean curse under his breath, “Freaking Henricksen, Jesus,” as Loretta’s voice rang across the valley. “They’re murderers?” Raylan wasn’t certain it was fear he heard in it.

“No,” Dean replied emphatically, “we’re not.”

Raylan cocked his weapon in its holster and both men turned right back to him. “The City of St. Louis and the State of Missouri have brought those charges against you and you’re suspected of the same by the FBI. So, I’m real sorry, but I’m going to have to bring you in.”

“Like hell you will.” Dean began to raise his weapon, but Sam brought his arm down hard on the barrel, his eyes shooting over to Loretta.

Sam’s tone was full of hurt and anger when he said to Boyd, “I can’t believe you brought a Fed here.”

Boyd’s answer was cool and measured. “Raylan is good people. I didn’t see the harm if I was only delivering a message. And I was unaware that you two had been charged with anything lately, let alone murder.”

“You know we’d never do anything like that, Boyd.” There was a plea in Sam’s voice, one that made the muscle in Raylan’s jaw twitch.

The sound and the expression that went with it rolled right off Boyd’s back. “ _Had I known_ , I would never have let this man anywhere near you boys. And of course, _I_ know you wouldn’t. Raylan has no reason to believe such a thing.”

“Other than your word?” This was Dean’s question, and it came out rough again, demanding.

Raylan snorted contemptuously and Boyd grimaced, saying, “Even you know better than to take my word at face value. Raylan’s got at least fifteen years more experience. I won’t tell him what to believe, he’d never listen even if he did trust me. It’s just not in his nature.”

“Well now,” Raylan interrupted, “I don’t think it really matters what’s in my nature or what Boyd does or does not believe. I’m taking you in, assholes, now drop your weapons.”

“You gonna make us?” Dean growled. “We got two guns on your one. Mine already has two in the barrel.”

“I’ll put down one of you before you can get off a shot,” Raylan said. It was much darker now, but he wouldn’t need perfect aim across that distance. It was all about speed anyway, reflexes. “Should I pick you or your brother?”

Loretta finally shifted nervously behind him. He wished to God he had told her to turn right around and go back to the car when they saw Boyd.

Boyd raised a hand and took a step forward, though not directly in the line of fire. “That’s one thing you can believe, boys. Raylan here is fast as shit. He shot me once with his pistol on the table and mine in my hand. He’s not messing around, Dean. You want a bullet in your head? You want your brother to die tonight?”

“Raylan,” Loretta called from behind him, her tone tentative but insistent.

“Yes, Loretta?” he replied patiently. Dean’s barrel was lowered, but it wasn’t on the ground. Their eyes were locked across the empty field. Raylan knew Loretta wouldn’t say anything right then unless she had a real good reason.

“There’s a light comin’ from the path behind us. Someone’s walking the trail.”

Raylan almost didn’t hear her and realized she must be looking behind them. “Boyd, I want you to look,” Raylan said. He didn’t bother to think about whether or not the man would listen to him, he just knew he’d trust his observations over whatever the Winchester boys would say to get him to turn his back.

“The girl ain’t lyin’,” Dean said, hefting his gun again.

“Shit. Put that thing back down, asshole,” Raylan shouted. “Boyd, what do you see?”

There was a hesitation, but finally Boyd replied, “A light, Raylan. A dim one, but it does look like someone on the trail. You expecting anybody, boys?”

The brothers glanced at each other. In the rapidly decreasing sunlight, Raylan couldn’t see what their expressions conveyed.

“You didn’t take that trail here,” Sam said. “You cut through the trees, straight from the nature reserve path. So, where’s the light coming from?”

“From up the mountain,” Loretta answered. “That’s what it looks like anyway. But I can’t hear no footsteps. We should’ve heard ‘em by now.”

“Can’t see anybody either,” Boyd said in a hushed tone. It was almost full dark.

Raylan’s jaw twitched again. He remembered his daddy once telling him a drunken tale about ghost lights on this mountain. His flashlight was in the trunk of the Lincoln.

Dean’s eyes were on him when the man said bluntly, “Look, Deputy, I’m not going to shoot you, but there is no way in hell that I am putting down this shotgun. Do you understand me?”

“We need to get out of here,” Sam said, his eyes cast past Raylan, presumably on the light.

“They do, you mean,” Dean replied.

“The Impala’s the fastest way back to civilization, Dean. I don’t think this is necessarily our problem.” They’d fallen into a pattern of argument that Raylan knew only came from knowing someone very well and fighting more than a fair share.

He took the chance and let his hand slip from his holster, turning to see what Boyd and Loretta were still staring at. When the strange, hazy yellow light came into his view Raylan felt something lurch within him. He thought maybe his feet were slipping out from under his knees, but he was still upright, and he felt cold, all over.

“Why would it be your problem?” he croaked to the boys, not quite willing to take his eyes off the light yet.

They didn’t answer and their argument only grew more hushed. He thought maybe they took a few steps away. But he still didn’t want to turn his back on that light.

Loretta backed slowly up into him and he put his right hand securely back on her shoulder. Her own hand crept slowly into his left. “You’re freezing,” she murmured, peering up at him. The light was much closer than it had been.

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth. Though in the back of his mind he knew something was wrong. “Loretta, go on over there next to Boyd,” he ordered, finally freeing his weapon from the holster. He didn’t think the light was so much moving towards them as it was moving towards _him_ , though he’d be hard pressed to say exactly why.

Loretta saw the gun in his hand and let herself be pushed away from him. Now he saw fear in her eyes as she said, “What’s happening?”

“Raylan,” Boyd said in an uncertain tone. The light was at the edge of the firebreak, hovering, and Raylan could just make out a hazy dark figure immediately behind it, yet somehow barely illuminated. It looked like the shadow of a man.

“Shit,” one of the Winchesters cursed. “What’s it doing, Sam?”

“How should I know?” Sam said, closer now, and Raylan realized both brothers were on either side of him.

“It’s gonna come at us,” Raylan found himself saying and he felt his hand, his trigger finger, actually begin to shake. “It’s coming.”

“Raylan,” Boyd said again, and Boyd knowing something was wrong with him didn’t make him feel any goddamn better.

The light seemed to suddenly expand, growing bright and closer and coming fast towards them. Raylan heard the Winchesters cursing and Loretta’s scream of fright. He couldn’t do anything because the light, sickeningly yellow and hazy but so so bright, enveloped his vision and he felt a cold hand reach around his throat, squeezing icy fingers around his neck until he couldn’t draw any air into his lungs. It seemed like a long time before he passed out.

Raylan woke to the sound of Loretta crying his name. Her hands were pulling at his jacket and her voice cracked in distress, not far away from honest-to-God sobs. The ground was cold and hard beneath his back.

“Shit,” he cursed, and slowly sat up, pulling the girl close to him. They hadn’t been real touchy-feely before, and until that moment Raylan hadn’t been sure how much their time together meant to her. “It’s okay, honey,” he said, coughing over her shoulder as she clung to him. “It’s okay. I’m all right.”

He caught Boyd’s eye and knew the man was wondering how much of a lie it was, and truth be told, Raylan wasn’t sure himself.

The Winchesters were looking at him with nearly identical expressions that looked like some mixture of puzzlement and suspicion. Dean stood with his arms crossed in front of him like a bouncer and Sam still had his fingers wrapped around the trigger of one of those shotguns.

“What?” Raylan asked them, still holding on tight to Loretta.

“Why did you say that?” Dean’s frown grew deeper, like he anticipated any answer to be more disturbing that what he’d already imagined.

Loretta pulled back and looked at Raylan, like she expected an answer too. There were tears, he was glad to see not too many, drying on her cheeks.

“Say what?” he replied.

  


  
Loretta’s face grew more concerned and the brothers’ only more suspicious. Sam seemed to be the more patient of the two because after a quick exchange of glances, it was he who spoke in a somewhat sympathetic voice. “You said, ‘I’m sorry,’ before you fell. You also said you knew it was coming at us.”

“It was,” Raylan said defensively.

“Why did you say, ‘I’m sorry’?” Dean demanded.  
Raylan raised his hand to his head and realized he’d lost his hat. He looked around and saw it in Boyd’s hands, raising his gaze to meet the man’s, knowing Boyd remembered the story of this mountain probably better than he did. “I don’t remember saying that,” he said. “Why do you care? Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

“That’s what _I_ said,” Sam threw his hands up in the air at his brother. “If we had gone, we wouldn’t be in this position now. It hasn’t killed anybody, Dean. I don’t think--”

“No,” Dean interrupted, anger and frustration in his voice, too. “But now it’s attacked this dick, you really want to leave that to chance? Have to come back to this crappy town in this screwed up county and deal with it later, when we’ll have who-the-hell-knows what else on our plate?”

“What are you assholes talking about?” Raylan grumbled, letting Loretta slide off him and climbing to his feet. She kept her hand gripped tight around his fingers.

“You tell him,” Dean barked at Boyd. “We’ve got to get some stuff out of the car.” The two turned and began a fast hike down the mountain, bickering at each other the whole way.

When Raylan made to follow them, his limbs still feeling stiff and cold, Boyd grabbed at his shoulder, saying, “Save yourself a trip, Raylan, they’re gonna be coming back up.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“They got business up here.”

“What business?” It was Loretta who asked. She’d dropped Raylan’s hand when Boyd came near and was busy scrabbling the tears off her face. She sniffled twice but the look on her face was fierce. “Why can’t we just get the hell off the mountain?”

“Fastest way off is with those boys. We can’t walk back through the woods, not safely at this hour, regardless of what else is going on. So we have to wait for the Winchesters to take care of it, drive on out with them.” Boyd spoke evenly, matter of fact, like always, and Raylan hated it.

He drew his hand across his brow, still feeling cold and not like himself. “What do you mean, take care of it?”

“They’re hunters, Raylan. Like old Snappy Jones was a hunter,” Boyd explained, handing Raylan his hat and gun back. “Daddy used to ship supplies up from New Orleans and Florida for him way back when, with the coke and later all the oxy. Sam and Dean’s daddy got wind of it somehow and came knocking on Bo’s door about twenty years ago. I met those boys when Sam was barely out of diapers. They’d come through maybe once every two years, looking for some rare artifact or weapon. Daddy would never say much about it and I always kept my nose out. Bowman did some courier work in that business when he was trying not to work for the mine, but I never did. This shit scares the hell out of me.”

Finally, with those words, Raylan did see the fear in Boyd’s eyes, maybe that had been buried all along their walk on the trail and their talk with the brothers. Boyd liked them, but he didn’t like what they did, what they had to deal with. He’d only come here to deliver a message.

“I can’t believe this,” Raylan said heavily and rubbed his palms across his face.

Raylan had never seen a ghost before, but he knew enough people who claimed they had to figure there was more behind the tales than bullshit and too much bourbon. There were enough ghost stories in and around Harlan to make anybody a grudging believer. And with what Boyd knew about those boys and their father, there must never have been a question of fact or fiction.

No, ghosts were real and Raylan knew the truth of that, what he couldn’t believe was that the damn ghost was after _him_ specifically.

He looked up at Boyd and quirked an ironic smile, “And you wonder why I never wanted to come back here.”

“I did no such thing, Raylan. I just didn’t agree with you.” Every once in a while, when Boyd would smile back like he was doing right then, Raylan would think maybe the last twenty years hadn’t happened. Then he would blame the thought on something else. Today, he blamed the goddamn ghost.

“So we can’t leave because these idiots want to kill the thing that attacked Raylan?” Loretta asked incredulously. “That’s insane.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to our world, sweetheart,” Dean called from just a few yards down the hill. The brothers were returning each with a large duffel bag strapped across their chests and large flashlights in their hands. Sam pulled another shotgun from his bag and tossed it to Raylan, who caught it easily.

“You got an arsenal in that vehicle of yours?” he asked. “You got licenses for these weapons?”

Dean shrugged. “It’s none of your damn business.”

Raylan’s jaw twitched again. He examined the shotgun in the new found light: it looked old, but well cared for. He cracked open the barrel. “What are these cartridges?”

“Loaded with rock salt,” Sam answered.

“Rock salt,” Raylan repeated. “Boyd, you’d tell me if these boys weren’t legit, wouldn’t you?”

“My daddy used to say the one and only place you’d want one of the Winchester boys is at your back on a hunt. Is that legitimate enough for you?”

Raylan loaded one in each barrel. “I do hate you sometimes, Boyd.”

“Rock salt,” Sam said, rolling his eyes, “will disperse a ghost before it can get at you. Iron will do the same thing. In order to get rid of the spirit for good, though, we’ll have to salt and burn the bones.”

Raylan leaned the shotgun in the crook of his arm and put his hat back on his head, settling it low on his brow. “Boyd, today I really do hate you.”

“You say that like this is my fault,” Boyd returned with another smile, or so Raylan assumed from the tone of his voice. Both of the Winchesters flashlights were pointed inside their duffels.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Dean grumbled and Raylan heard Loretta laugh behind her hand. When no one answered, he just kept on asking questions, pulling an iron poker out of his bag as well and tossing it to Boyd. “Tell us what the deal is with this mountain. What are the stories?”

“It’s just one story,” Raylan replied heavily. “And I’m not telling it.”

“Well, let’s all take a seat then,” Boyd said. “We’re not going anywhere ‘til I get the whole thing out and Raylan looks like he’s about to fall over.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled and crossed his legs to sit down. Loretta planted herself as close to him as possible, so he pulled an arm around her skinny shoulders, worrying about the thinness of her coat in the night air.

The Winchesters sat as well and Boyd began to spin the tale. Raylan knew it was a short one, so he didn’t let himself get too comfortable.

“Well now, everyone knows in these parts they’ve been shoveling the coal out of every mountain since they figured out how to keep a shaft open long enough for a few men to die in it.” Boyd’s voice was soft, but it carried strength in each word, a force which made it seem like a story worth listening to, instead of the drunken tall tale Raylan had heard his daddy cackle over on a summer night as a boy. “This mountain we sit on was mined out in the late forties, after they carried off every last nugget for the war machine. The story I’m telling though, dates back to the days of Bloody Harlan in the thirties, when picket lines, company thugs, and murder were as much a part of life as they were when Raylan and I were boys, more so even.

“The men who worked this mine lived on the mountain and in the hollers, where the creek winds through, and they would walk to work on the very paths we crossed to get here. It was a small mine, so maybe five or six families lived up here, and the bosses and some others would come in on trucks from the company shanty towns in Loyall or the stucco houses there that they rented to the foremen. In one of the hollers close to the creek--sadly my father never mentioned which one specifically--a man lived with his young wife and baby. The man’s name was Jeffries-- Bucky or Buck Jeffries.”

Here, Raylan interjected, “My daddy always said his name was Jacobs, Hank or something like that.”

“I hardly think it matters at this point, Raylan,” Boyd replied with a smile. The flashlights had long been extinguished but the moon was now high and bright enough to see by.

“I just thought it would be the interest of full disclosure, that there may be some uncertainty or room for debate about the man’s name. You know, for the hunting of his ghost,” Raylan said. “But, go on. You’re doing a real good job.”

“Thank you, Raylan,” Boyd said graciously and continued. “Now, this man Jeffries, his wife had sort of a reputation, before they were married, but he’d knocked her up and he did right by her, or so the story goes. They’d been married not much more than a year when a collapse sent the man back to his home an hour or so early. He was surprised to see a lamp burning inside the house and even more surprised to see his wife in the arms of another man, in their very bed with his own child sleeping nearby.”

“Didn’t see that one coming,” Dean muttered and Sam glared at him. Still, he went on, “Not that this isn’t a great story, Boyd, but I’m just going to go ahead and guess that this Jeffries guy was pretty pissed, there was some kind of fight and he ended up dead. Am I right?”

Boyd’s lips thinned and Raylan wiped a hand across his eyes. He just wanted to get through the night. He decided to have the rest out so Boyd couldn’t drag it along with big words and more gore than Loretta needed to hear.

“Way my daddy tells it, the man was Jeffries’ boss from the mine who was sneaking off early to screw his wife. They had angry words and a hunting rifle was pulled off the wall. There was a struggle and Jeffries was shot in the face. The neighbors were woken by the shot and the baby screaming. They never found the shooter; he disappeared that night. Weeks later, people said the woman went out of her mind and drowned the babe in the bath then hung herself in their little shack. Now, every once in a while someone up here says they saw a ghost light walking the trail after dark. It’s supposed to be Jeffries walking back to his shack from the mine that night, doing it over and over again for all eternity, or something like that.”

He looked over to Boyd with an apologetic expression for finishing off the tale. Boyd just nodded once and fiddled with the iron poker in his hands. Raylan wondered how they’d got there and couldn’t come up with anything but bad karma or God’s ineffable sense of humor.

Loretta shivered next to him and said in a low voice, “That… is a terrible story.”

“They’re all pretty much like that in this business,” Sam replied, just as low.

“My daddy always told it to teach me why a man should keep control of his woman.” Raylan didn’t know exactly why he said that, but Loretta pulled closer to him and Boyd made some unidentifiable noise in response before pulling himself off the ground.

The brothers got up as well and Dean began rechecking their gear as Sam said, “Well, I guess it would be safe to say Jeffries isn’t a fan of… what, adulterers?”

All eyes fell to Raylan immediately.

“You screwed another man’s wife?” Dean asked and there was a challenge in his voice, but no emotion in his eyes.

Boyd stepped forward suddenly, thrusting the poker in his friend’s face. To Dean’s credit, he didn’t back up much, practically daring Boyd to push forward. But Boyd’s words held that soft and dangerous tone that Raylan had learned to be wary of as he said, “You watch your language in front of this child, Dean Winchester, and you refrain from judging this man. You don’t know him and you don’t know his circumstances. Raylan would not even be on this mountain to be condemned by you if he was less than fully committed to his duties as a lawman and as protector of this county and the great goddamn State of Kentucky. So you just hold your tongue on what you think of his personal choices and tell us how we can get rid of this spirit and out of these woods so I never have to see you or any other member of your bad luck family again.”

Raylan and Loretta had pulled themselves to their feet as Boyd finished speaking and everyone was now standing in the light of the moon eyeing each other carefully.

“Damn, Boyd,” Dean said, his gravelly voice hushed, “tell me how you really feel.”

Loretta snorted contemptuously and raised her eyebrows at Sam. “Your brother doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, a put upon look on his face and a warning in his tone, “he’s in top freaking form today, that’s for sure.”

Raylan stepped forward and pushed the poker down, away from Dean’s face. “To be fair,” he said, looking at the hunter, “She was my wife first, all right?” He cast a sideways glance at Boyd, who backed off immediately, but did not look chastised at all.

“I’m not sure this guy cares too much about that, Marshal,” Dean replied, still injecting every word with irony.

“I don’t care what he thinks,” Raylan returned with a significant “screw you” look.

“All right, then,” Sam said with a note of finality. “Where would they have buried the bones?”

“Next to the shack,” Boyd answered. “People ‘round here like to keep their kin close, even the ones who have passed on.”

Raylan nodded in mute agreement then looked over to the trail where they’d seen the light. He felt the world narrow around him. He thought he saw a flash of light off in the distance, but it disappeared quickly and he blinked rapidly, trying to catch it again. “We’ll have to walk it to get there.” He didn’t recognize the tone in his voice and he was cold again. Real cold.

“Raylan,” Boyd said quietly, moving up next to him. “How about you let me take that?” He cast his eyes down at the gun in Raylan’s hands and held out the iron. “Trade you?”

Raylan thought about his fingers shaking on the trigger of his service weapon and spat, “Shit,” then handed the shotgun over to Boyd. He felt a shiver pass through him, up and down his spine. “Fine, it’s fine,” he said and was sure they all knew he was talking to himself. “Let’s just get to burning the son of a bitch.”

They set off in a line towards the path the light had travelled down, Dean first, then Raylan and Loretta, followed by Boyd with Sam bringing up the rear. The path was illuminated only by their flashlights, as the moon had retreated behind the thick canopy above them. It seemed as though they were walking through a dark tunnel, with nothing but black on either side. The only reason Raylan wasn’t taken back to working in the mine was the fresh air and the side of the path.

He was actually reminded of his armed hike through the jungle in Nicaragua, except for the extreme cold instead of heat. Then he felt really weird about the thought and tried to dismiss it almost immediately, except he couldn’t shake it and every other second he thought he saw that goddamn ghost light in the trees ahead. He knew at least Boyd saw how twitchy he was becoming and how hard he was straining to keep it reined in.

But it was Loretta who pushed herself ahead, coming up next to him and looping her arms through one of his. He looked down and into her shadowed brown eyes. “I’m sorry about this, honey.”

“Shut up, Raylan,” she said and her lips quirked bravely. “It’s gonna be fine, okay?”

He smiled. “Yeah, until I have to explain this to Jenny, and Winona for that matter. Shit.”

She laughed. “We’ll think of something.”

Raylan was about to say something else, but suddenly the air around him turned cold, so cold that he felt all his muscles grow stiff. He dropped the iron poker and heard it clang to the ground and the light didn’t just suddenly appear in front of him, it advanced at him rapidly, within a second, pushing him back and down to the ground with a great force. He felt that same icy grip at his throat.

He heard Loretta shout his name again, but he was lost to everything except the ghostly figure of a man in mining coveralls, bending over him. Jeffries’ face was half gone, bloody and oozing, but his eyes were as yellow and ghostly as the light he carried, suffusing Raylan’s vision, seeming to be in the very air. He breathed it in short gasps into his lungs and it smelled of sulfur and coal dust.

There was a roaring in Raylan’s ears, but it seemed to come from behind him, and underneath the sound, he swore, he could hear Jeffries speaking to him, lowly threatening pain and death upon him and all his family for what he had done.

Something shifted in Raylan, settled in and he found himself answering back in a rush of anger and hatred that he couldn’t stop himself from embracing, “Screw you, asshole, and hell no, I am not sorry.” He seized the strength, from God knew where, to push back against that force and turn the tables on him, pinning a body to the ground, seeing that horrific face draw back in surprise. He smiled then, cruelly, and pulled up high to choke the bastard. “She was good,” Raylan heard himself spit, “she was real goddamn good with her sweet little mouth on my--”

He broke off because someone pulled him backward by the goddamn collar, he fought it, cursing again and straining against it, but then the iron was shoved into his hands and his vision cleared, his head cleared, too. Shit.

Boyd was looking at him from across the path, lying prone with angry red marks in stripes like fingers across his neck, wheezing and eyes more than terrified. . “Raylan,” he said, voice rough, “are you with us?”

Dean was directing his flashlight hard at Raylan’s face and Boyd’s had fallen to the ground, pointing down at his legs and only dimly illuminating his expression. Next to Boyd, Loretta had pushed herself back up against a tree trunk and her arms were wrapped around her knees. He didn’t see tears, but her eyes were wide and frightened. Sam had a hand on her shoulder. It must have been Dean who pulled him away.

“Oh, God,” Raylan choked. He felt cold again, but clammy with fear sweat and horror, his heart was pounding, his hands shaking again. Something had been inside him, in his head, and eyes, putting those filthy words in his mouth. He turned and retched what little was in his stomach out into the dirt and the leaves off the path, still clutching hard at the iron.

“Raylan,” Loretta said, worry threading the tremor of fear in her voice.

He didn’t say he was okay. He wasn’t going to voice such a bald-faced lie. “I’m here,” was all he could think to give her as he tried to pull himself back together, spitting out the remaining bile and wiping at his mouth. He stayed on the ground though; the prospect of standing at that point was an entirely different story.

“What kind of God--” Boyd began, his eyes now distant and still fearful, but Raylan shifted forward suddenly, snapping everyone’s attention back to him.

“No,” he said to Boyd, raising a finger and pointing it at him. “We are not starting in with your messed up views on God and religion, Boyd. Whatever they happen to be lately, I don’t really care. You can think about it later. Tonight, I think we got another body to burn.”

“Shit,” Loretta swore and Raylan didn’t even think to stop her.

Sam stepped away and Dean came around to face Raylan. “So that was a possession, right? Because to me, it looked like a textbook possession. It was the other guy who jumped your bones. The one who ‘disappeared’,” Dean said, complete with air quotes.

“Dean,” Sam warned again, “come on, you don’t have to be a dick about it.”

Raylan decided to make his legs work so he didn’t have to look at Dean Winchester standing over him with that smug-as-hell expression on his face. He got up a little unsteadily, but glared at Sam until the boy put his hand, raised in some misguided attempt to help, down at his side. He walked slowly over to where Boyd and Loretta were still sitting. He kept the poker in his hand, and bent to scoop his hat off the ground, but did not put it back on right away.

Boyd eyed him not too warily and Raylan was reminded of the night they became friends, though lately he’d tried hard not to think of those times. They’d accidentally started an argument, just about some random fact or other, at the puddle in Cumberland. The disagreement ended up spreading to the entire clientele and concluded in a bar brawl, spilling out into the warm summer night. Raylan had looked at Boyd over the pile of miners and outlaws climbing all over each other, shouting and throwing punches, and he said, “You wanna get out of here?”

When he squatted down to meet Boyd’s eyes now and asked that same question, a grin identical to the one Raylan had witnessed over twenty years before, spread across his friend’s face as he replied, “You got any place in particular in mind, Raylan?”

“Anywhere but here still seems pretty appropriate,” Raylan said and extended his hand, grasping Boyd’s and pulling him to his feet.

“That it does,” Boyd said, brushing the leaves from his pants.

Loretta pushed herself to her feet as well, hurtling at Raylan and wrapping her arms around his waist. Boyd looked at him with a curious expression, perhaps asking something along the lines of since-when-do-things-like-this-happen-to you? Raylan didn’t bother to try and form an answer as he drew his fingers through the girl’s hair in an effort to soothe her. How should he know how it happened?

“Okay,” Dean said, drawing out the word and pointing his flashlight down the path. “We’re gonna get going, then? I mean, we do want to kill these two bastards before the sun comes up, right?” He looked at them expectantly and it was all Raylan could do not to hit him in his stupid face.

“You,” Raylan said, pointing a finger at the boy, “don’t get to talk to me anymore. Unless it’s life and death important.” He switched his gaze over to Sam, who was busy picking up his bag and looking sheepish. “You’re in charge of that.”

He gripped the iron poker extra hard and wished for the shotgun. Then he froze, reaching for his sidearm, still stuck fast in its holster. If he had thought before, with Boyd... he shook his head not wanting to think about it.

Raylan pulled the weapon out and turned to Loretta, holding it out to her by the barrel. “I know someone has taught you how to use one of these,” he said and she nodded slowly, her eyes still real big. “I’m gonna give this to you, because I don’t want it on me, all right? But you don’t use it unless one of them,” he indicated Boyd, Sam, and Dean, who all looked significantly disturbed, “says you should. I’m not to be trusted. You got that?”

“Okay, Raylan,” she answered in a small voice, but still tough, still her. She took the gun, checked the mag, slid the safety off and back on and slipped it into her pocket.

He smiled and put his hat back on. “Good girl,” he said and they walked on.

  


As they went, turning the flashlights on the increasingly dark path, trying to avoid fallen branches and unexpectedly deep divots along the ground, nothing, it seemed, could get Dean to stop talking. He talked to everyone except Raylan, apparently deciding it was better to heed a warning than not. Most often it was to Sam about something that was fairly crass or made absolutely no sense. Raylan found he could ignore it pretty well.

But after whatever subject it was had been exhausted, Dean turned to call back at Boyd, “You never screwed anybody else’s wife, Boyd? You must not have, or we might’ve had two possessions on our hands, you know, if that is how it works with these guys.”

Raylan would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t been so busy watching the trees ahead, searching for lights. Loretta glared from beside him and he gave her a small approving smile.

“Please, let’s not tempt fate, Dean. I hate it when we do that,” Sam muttered darkly.

Dean sort of scoffed, but didn’t say anything else until Boyd finally spoke up with an answer, “Never had the opportunity to tell you the truth. If Ava had been amenable a few years ago, I very well might have.”

That got the boys’ attention right quick. “You would have screwed your brother’s wife?” Sam asked.

“Am currently, if you must know,” Boyd’s grin was wide, pleased with himself as it always was when he talked about him and Ava. Raylan let him have it without much grudging, he knew first-hand she was quite a woman. “But Bowman’s dead, so I don’t really think it qualifies as adultery, do you?”

“But still,” Dean sounded just short of disgusted, “your brother’s wife?”

“You must never have seen Ava Crowder,” Raylan said laughing.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to you?”

“He never said anything about him talking to you,” Sam shot back. “And don’t push him, all right? He’s had a bad day.”

“I’ve had worse,” Dean defended. “You have too.”

“He’s not us,” Sam replied, side-stepping a low tree branch.

Raylan couldn’t help but interject, “And thank the Lord for that,” and the sentiment was promptly echoed by both Boyd and Loretta.

The girl walked with a frown on her face and a line on her brow that seemed to be more than disturbed by the entire conversation. Raylan looked at her hard for a moment, taking his concentration from the woods. He felt heartily sorry all of this had conspired to happen, and on the day they were just supposed to be enjoying the nature of their shared home. Raylan supposed that’s just how things would go in Harlan, how they always seemed to go. And yet, its faithful denizens just kept on coming back for more.

Raylan glanced at Boyd and held back a smirk. At least they both seemed to always come back, somehow, and still had the tenacious notion that the place would let them come out on top, once and for all, be it for one side or the other.

Boyd looked up from the trail and caught the tail end of Raylan’s gaze, flashing him a smile that made Raylan wonder if Boyd had been able to pick up on the general train of his thoughts. He wouldn’t really be surprised.

Raylan turned back to the trees and suddenly went cold again. This time he felt things sort of freeze around him, the air and even his companions just for a split second as he spotted a light in the distance. But this wasn’t the ghost light he was seeing, it was sort of warm and glowy, in a fixed spot near where the creek wound close to the path.

Everything went normal again in the very next second, except that Raylan had stopped walking. He barely registered Boyd saying his name.

“There’s a light up there,” he told them in a hushed tone. He was afraid to have emotions about the prospect, so he kept his expression neutral, his voice flat. Or, at least he tried to. He clutched the poker tight in his hand, but found it didn’t help at all. He felt everything but his grip on that iron slipping, slipping fast away from him.

“I don’t see anything,” Loretta said.

“Raylan, there’s nothing there,” Boyd said softly, brushing his fingers against the sleeve of Raylan’s coat in an attempt to reach for him.

Raylan flinched away with a hissed intake of breath and took a few steps up the path. He grasped at a tree trunk next to the trail and leaned against it, feeling suddenly weak in his legs. “It’s the house,” he said and found that his teeth were chattering, which was weird because he actually felt warm now, real warm. He kept his eyes on the light, the only thing that seemed steady.

“Raylan,” Dean tried, actually sounding a little conciliatory, concerned even, and moving slowly up on him.

Raylan rounded on the hunter, pointing the poker at him and falling back into a defensive position against the tree. He didn’t like not looking at the light, but suddenly he knew they didn’t believe him. “Don’t you fucking touch me,” he ground out. “It’s the place, I know it is.”

“Fine,” Boyd said, stepping in front of Dean, his hands raised. “That’s just fine, Raylan, we believe you. But I want you to stop for a minute, just one little minute, and think about this. Maybe… maybe this isn’t the way you want to act about it, right? Maybe something else is going on, like before.”

Raylan heard what Boyd had said after he asked him to stop and think, saw his lips form the words, and knew they were in English, but somehow the meaning of them escaped him entirely. He saw that Boyd was worried, scared, and he was reminded of the way Boyd had looked in the black, when they were young and they thought they were going to die. This was serious shit, right here, and Raylan knew that. He knew it.

“There’s a light on over there, Boyd,” he said desperately. “Can’t you see it?”

Boyd licked his lips and didn’t speak for a moment. Raylan saw Sam move closer to Loretta whose jaw was working somewhere between a stubborn little frown and a quivering lip. He saw she was scared too, but he didn’t know what to do about that.

“I believe that’s the place, Raylan,” Boyd replied slowly. “I believe that you see that the light’s on. What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to go over there.” As soon as Raylan voiced the desire, he was overcome with it. He felt his skin shivering at the thought, all his muscles quivering in anticipation. It was all he wanted, all he’d ever needed to do. “I want to, Boyd. It’s where I need to go.”

“Okay, Raylan. But, just wait a minute. While we talk. All right?”

Raylan eyed them all suspiciously, but they were blocking him from the path and the undergrowth in the area was too thick for him to cut through. He knew he didn’t want to hurt them, not unless he had to. So he gave a short nod and leaned back against the tree.

He listened to them talk and couldn’t make any sense of it again. This time, it seemed not to bother him much.

“He’s still got the iron,” Dean grumbled, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s obviously not working anymore. It must be stronger here near the shack, near both bodies. Let’s just hope he hangs onto it, think of how much worse it could be if he let that go.”

“No thank you, Sam,” Boyd replied matter-of-factly. “I don’t think I will think about that.”

“Did you see his eyes?” Loretta whispered. “They were yellow. Glowing yellow, like the ghost light.”

“I don’t think he’s possessed. We saw that before. This situation doesn’t seem to be quite the same. Raylan knew me, knew himself as well. I saw it,” Boyd insisted.

“Maybe that’s the iron at work. He’s just being influenced, not possessed.”

Raylan opened his eyes and saw them all staring at him. “Fuck you,” he said. “I want to go.” He pushed off from the tree trunk and stepped up to Dean, eyeing him with a large degree of hostility.

“Let him go,” Boyd said.

“Who made you an expert on this, Crowder?” Dean asked with his jaw jutted stubbornly.

“I happen to be expert on Raylan Givens, Dean. He’s got a ruthless streak. He thinks you’re an enemy, he’ll gut you with that weapon. Just let him go. This is how we’ll proceed. There won’t be any stopping him without serious injury, so we’ll follow him there and hope that iron is enough for him to stave off whatever comes until we can burn the shack to the ground. Loretta, now is the time for you to pull out that piece. Stay behind me, but if it looks like Raylan’s turning on us, if he tries to hurt these boys or me or you, you take a shot. It’d be best to clip him, but if you’re unable, try to get him in the leg or some such, all right?” Boyd’s voice was even, calm, and when he spoke he was looking directly at Raylan.

Raylan wasn’t really paying attention to what he’d said though. Raylan was looking at Dean, waiting for the boy to get out of his way, so he could go to the light, because he needed to go.

“It’s a solid plan, Dean,” Sam said, a crease of worry marring his brow. “I can’t think of a better way, can you?”

“Yeah, Dean,” Raylan interjected, just for kicks. “It’s solid.” He let his smile spread slow and mean.

“Oh my God,” Dean growled but was pulled back from any forward momentum towards Raylan by Sam.

“We’re wasting time,” Boyd said. “I can’t imagine him getting any better the longer we wait. Are we agreed, boys?”

“Yeah,” they said simultaneously, Dean a little angrier than Sam.

Boyd looked at Raylan again and in his eyes was the same challenge they always seemed to give each other, the same measuring gaze. “Go on then, Raylan,” he said. “No one’s stopping you.”

Raylan turned and walked past them all as they moved out of his way. He set his eyes on the light and it seemed brighter now and warmer. He didn’t need a flashlight, finding he could see just fine. He felt his heart start to pound, his blood pump through him faster. He was getting hot around the collar, felt the heat of that light from five hundred feet away. Something was there that he wanted desperately. “I’m coming,” he whispered, but didn’t know why. He smiled, because he was gonna get what he wanted, and forgot there was or ever had been anyone behind him.

The path felt familiar here, but he knew it shouldn’t. He didn’t dwell on it long, though. The iron felt heavy in his hand as he walked, but something, something important someone had said made him keep hold of it as he approached the door.

The place itself looked warm still, inviting even. It was a small place, but new and clean, with young wood, unmarred by time or even much weathering. Raylan looked it over and felt disquiet within himself. Despite its nice exterior, its cozy, homey qualities, he didn’t like the little cabin. It represented something… he just didn’t like.

What he wanted, he knew would be inside. As he raised his arm to knock on the door, it opened and a woman stepped up to the edge of the threshold. She was real pale with long black hair down her back in big waves. Her dress was loose, made out of cheap cotton, but she’d left it mostly unbuttoned with no under things on at all. He could see her lithe form right through it and half her bosom down the front. “I been waitin’ for you,” she said, big, dark eyes lidded suggestively, lips pouted, but just on the verge of an anticipatory smile. “Where you been?”

“Delayed,” he said, rough. This is what he’d wanted, what he’d been waiting for, needing all day.

“Babe’s asleep,” she told him, like he cared. “My man won’t be back for a while.” She reached out to him, but stopped her fingers at the edge of the threshold.

“Don’t talk about him,” Raylan said immediately, harsh and angry. He hated when Winona even mentioned Gary, the fucker. But something about that felt wrong as well. He shook his head, felt himself sway away from her.

“Fine,” she replied easily and smiled at him. He remembered how much he’d been wanting her. She leaned herself up against the doorframe, letting her dress fall open even more, and looked down at the iron in his hand. “What’s that for?” she asked.

Raylan looked down at it too and honestly couldn’t remember.

“Raylan,” someone called from behind him and he snapped his head around, afraid of being caught out. “Don’t you drop that iron, Raylan. Do you hear me? You keep that in your hand.”

The speaker was maybe fifteen feet from him, but the night was dark and he could only see the outline of some bodies coming from the path near the creek. They had lights on them, but they were pointing forward on the path and at the house, and Raylan couldn’t see their faces in the shadows.

Raylan began breathing hard, feeling a creeping sense that something wasn’t right. He looked back down at the iron in his hand. His fingers were wrapped so tight around it he wasn’t even sure he could loosen them if he wanted to.

“You ain’t gonna need that in here,” she said and Raylan looked back up at her. The warmth of the light and her home surrounded her, made him yearn for it, even more than he had before. “Come in,” she said enticingly. “It’s gettin’ colder, baby, come inside.”

“Raylan, listen to me now,” that same voice demanded. Raylan heard two large forms veer off from the others and double stomping footsteps crashed through the leaves and disappeared around the side of the house. “You don’t want to go inside that shack. I don’t know what you’re seeing, or what’s goin’ on in your head, but walking through that door would be the dumbest thing you ever done and that includes telling me not to shoot Dickie Bennett in the goddamn back.”

Raylan remembered that day, remembered him saying, “That’s hardly the point, Raylan,” remembered the need in his eyes for retribution. “Shit,” Raylan murmured, swaying as though a weight was lifting off him, his whole being going unbalanced, off-kilter. “Boyd Crowder?”

“That’s right, Raylan,” Boyd said, stepping forward. “Now maybe you wanna take a step away from that door.” Raylan could see Boyd had a shotgun raised at his shoulder, pointing straight at him, or actually, behind him.

Raylan turned back to the woman, whose expression was less than thrilled with the prospect. Her smile had changed to some sort of outraged sneer and she seemed too angry to form any kind of argument against Boyd’s suggestion. Raylan blinked and rubbed his thumb against the iron in his hand. He felt himself swaying, his body feeling violently hot and cold all over, all at the same time, like a fever spiking and breaking in one round rotation, over and over again.

“Yeah,” Raylan said slowly, not taking his eyes off her as she began to breathe hard and gnash her teeth. He felt worse than ever and he began to wonder if it wasn’t some sort of hold she was desperately trying to keep on him, which actually sounded about right to his slowly waking rational mind. “I think that’s a good idea.”

As he made to back away, the weight he’d felt lifting from him, the one that must have been riding him this whole time, attempted one final push down and Raylan stumbled forward, catching himself on the same door frame the woman had been leaning against, effectively crossing the threshold with his fingers and his toes of his boots.

It was as though a kind of force field had been broken, and she lunged for him, her face transforming into a terrifying grey and black mess of sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks. She screamed, high and shrill and pissed as all hell, the sound slowly descending into a low howl as Raylan scrambled back, stumbling to the ground and dragging himself away from her, cursing mindlessly in fear. Her hand came around his ankle, so cold it burned through his pant leg and boot. She pulled back on him, stopping his backwards movement. Her hollow eyes held his and seemed to suck from him any strength he had to get away.

“Raylan, the iron,” Loretta shouted from behind him, and he remembered what to do. He shifted his grip on the poker and was aiming for her head, but could only lift it high enough to swing for her hands. As he swung, the iron passed through her wrists, but she cried out as if in terrible pain and reared back.

Boyd took his shot then and it echoed loud it the tiny holler. As it went through her, she screeched again, louder and higher, and then she disintegrated.

“Ah, shit,” Raylan said, breathing hard, still scrambling as far away from the shack, which now looked rundown as all hell, weathered and beaten with the roof and walls collapsing in on it, as he could get. He stopped when he came even with Boyd’s feet. “Wh-where are the boys?” he asked.

“Went to look for the graves. Hopefully, we’ll find those bodies in them,” Boyd answered. He hadn’t taken his watchful eyes from the spot where he’d shot the ghost woman. “Guess we’re lookin’ for three now.”

Loretta had come up beside him as Boyd spoke and she knelt in the leaves next to him, her mouth twisted in worry, not speaking and not touching him, thank God. He didn’t think he could stand to be touched at that moment. His sidearm was still in her hand, safety off, and Raylan heard Boyd telling her to use it on him all over again.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Raylan cursed. He felt as though he were waking up from a goddamn nightmare. Everything he’d said and done from when he’d seen the light in the little shack seemed as though someone else had been in control. He remembered it all, thinking and speaking as himself but… not… Listening to what they said but not caring in the goddamn slightest. His head was throbbing and it only increased the more he thought about it and that woman... “Jesus Christ, Boyd,” he said, his voice shaking as much as the rest of him. He felt sick, but his stomach was empty now. “What the hell—”

“Raylan,” Boyd said, kneeling down fast next to Loretta and clamping a hand hard down on Raylan’s arm. Raylan started violently and tried to pull away, eyes wild, but Boyd’s grip was like that iron, still stuck fast in his other hand. “Raylan, tell me right now, are you back with us?”

Raylan’s chest was heaving. “This is… this is some kind of punishment, isn’t it?” He dragged his free hand across his face, feeling sweat and dirt, filth he couldn’t wipe away. The thought started running through his mind over and over again. “This is because… because I made those mistakes, I took her for granted and I lost her and now… now I got her back but I don’t get to just walk from that, no, no, not without… but I thought all that shit with Gary was—”

“Raylan,” Boyd said again, loud and urgent, give him a single hard shake, enough to stop the flow of words from Raylan’s mouth. “I frankly do not give a damn why you think this is happening to you. You can think about it later. Now, I’m going to ask you again, are you come back to us or do I need to keep an eye on you in addition to all the other shit that’s flying around?”

Raylan stared openly at Boyd, took in the still-masked fear lurking in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Boyd,” he said sincerely. “I can’t tell. I don’t know what I’m going to do from one moment to the next. Until I see those goddamn bodies up in flames, I can’t trust myself. So, I can’t ask you to, either. I’m so sorry.” He felt that uncertainty encroach upon him, wrap around him like the darkness cloaking the trees, preventing the moon from shining her light.

“Stop it,” Boyd said, and moved his hand from Raylan’s arm to wrap securely around the back of his neck. It took Raylan back to the day they’d come out of the black together, covered in coal dust and scared shitless from the collapse. That day he’d been shaking too, and Boyd had sat down and told him he was all right until he’d believed it. “This ain’t your fault, Raylan. It’ll be fine, all right? We’re gonna get off this mountain and I’m gonna buy us a big ol’ handle of Jack and we’re gonna get so blind-fuckin’ drunk that we’ll be able to pretend none of this ever happened. Sound good to you?”

Raylan nodded and laughed weakly, bringing his hand down to grasp at Boyd’s forearm, thinking that trusting Boyd was better than trusting himself at that point. A split second later they all heard the shot ring out from behind the house, then another in quick succession.

“Think that was a ghost or a Winchester?” Loretta asked, taking Boyd’s flashlight, which had fallen to the ground, in her hand.

“Did the shooting or got shot?” Boyd replied.

Loretta smirked at him and Raylan thought there was nothing like a hunt, of any kind he supposed, to make two people fast friends. “Either one.”

“If you guys aren’t dead, you mind coming around and giving us a hand?” Dean’s voice rose from the same direction the shot had come.

“Guess that answers your question,” Raylan said and moved to get up.

Raylan’s ankle where the ghost woman had grabbed him hurt like hell and was tender to walk on, though not impossible, but Boyd’s steady arm across Raylan’s shoulders did a lot to help him get around to the side of the shack. Loretta followed worriedly behind them, hand thrust hard into her pockets, and one wrapped tight around his gun.

When they came within view of the Winchesters, they were greeted with the sight of both boys knee deep in maybe a one foot wide, four foot long hole in the ground, digging with the speed and efficiency of people with a good amount of practice.

“You guys must do this often,” Loretta said dryly, come up to Raylan’s other side.

“Yeah yeah,” Dean said between puffs of exertion. “We get it. Ha, ha, we know how to dig a grave so we must be murderers.”

“Would make it a lot easier for you,” she baited them again with a smile on her face.

“Look, we only kill people when they’re either possessed or trying to kill us,” Sam said, turning from the grave to look at them.

“Or both,” Dean put in cheerfully, still shoveling.

“And even then,” Sam added, “we usually try to make it look like an accident.”

“Oh, that’s comforting,” Raylan muttered and Boyd snorted softly beside him. “What about Special Agent Henricksen?”

At that, Dean ceased his work all together, slamming the shovel hard into the ground and climbing out of the hole. “Henricksen,” he said with a strangely sad look on his face, “was a freaking Fed dickwad who never got off our backs until he had us in lock-up in Monument.”

Raylan remembered the report; that’s what had the government agencies so keen on finding these guys. They would have been wanted because of St. Louis, but they wouldn’t have been so high on the list if not for the disappearance of their lead investigator in Monument, Colorado.

“He didn’t believe in what we were doing. And we’d run into him before, we’d talked to him, he told us he knew about our dad, about a ton of the other illegal shit we get up to. You assholes must have files on that. He almost had us in Milwaukee, and again in Little Rock.”

“If we do,” Raylan replied, “I never saw them.”

“Yeah, well, it happened. And then he got us in Monument but... something was on our tail and he didn’t listen to us. Not until it was too late and the bitch killed him, not us. He made time for us to get out of there. He said he’d follow, but then the place blew and... we had to keep going.” Dean’s voice betrayed his anger at the woman, or whatever she had been, and his seemingly sincere grief for the agent.

“Where is she now?” Raylan asked softly.

“Dead,” both brothers said at once and with a tone of finality that Raylan couldn’t question. “She was a demon too, by the way. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count as murder.”

“A demon,” Boyd murmured, his breath coming a little fast. “God Almighty—”

“God is dead too, you know, or checked out, at least,” Dean said belligerently.

“Enough,” Raylan said, managing to take a small step on his own, gathering Boyd’s attention, as well as Dean and Sam’s. “We’ve already established that we can discuss this shit at a later date. We’re wasting time. You got an extra shovel for Boyd? I don’t think Loretta or I will be as much use.”

“No, but there’s an old one leaning against the wall over there,” Dean said, and went over to retrieve it.

“We think the married couple is buried here, roughly together,” Sam began explaining. “We haven’t hit wood yet—”

“They may not have been buried in coffins,” Boyd interjected. “Some of these families didn’t have that kind of money for funerals. They would’ve rather had fires or walls in their houses. They might not have wasted the wood if there was such a cloud over the deaths as there was here.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, there’s that. But we still don’t know about the other man. It wouldn’t make sense for their bodies to be buried all together. But we’re not even sure where to look. The story says he disappeared, so it wasn’t common knowledge that either one of the couple murdered him.”

“If they did,” Raylan mused, “it must have been the woman who hid the body. Even if she didn’t kill him, say if he died of wounds sustained in the fight, she would have been the one that had to get rid of the evidence before the neighbors arrived. Jeffries was dead or dying of the gunshot by then.”

Boyd glanced sidelong at Raylan as he was still supporting him with an arm. “He must be under the house, then. It’s the only place.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked as Boyd took the shovel from him.

“These little shacks didn’t have much in the way of basements or foundations, but they did have little crawl spaces for storing sealed up dry goods and cold things. There’s usually a loose board or two, or if they were real handy, a trap door to get down underneath. The woman would only have had time to shove a body down there to keep it hidden. I can’t imagine she moved it after that, with the state she must have been in at the time.” After he finished speaking, Boyd slowly moved his arm and his support from Raylan, keeping a questioning eye on him as they moved apart from each other. “I’ll take a shovel,” he said, “and a shotgun, and see what’s to be seen inside the house. You gonna be all right?”

Raylan grimaced, hating the man even had to ask. “Should be.” Boyd nodded and turned around, back to the front of the house, taking one of the lights with him.

“And why not?” Dean asked, climbing back down into the hole. “We’re here.”

Loretta rolled her eyes and sank down on the ground at the edge of the graves. “And that’s also real comforting.”

“It usually is!” Dean said defensively. “Anyway, you just keep yourself busy watching for ghost lights, okay?”

The girl said nothing in response, but did keep her eyes on the trees, focused enough that Raylan felt he could try and relax for a minute or two. He sat down himself, on the opposite corner of the graves, and took a few deep breaths, attempting to cease the cold, shaky feeling that hadn’t quite drained from his body.

“Jesus,” Dean muttered, “usually with murder victims you get shallow graves. This is getting ridiculous.”

Raylan replied, “Wasn’t the killers who buried these bodies. It was their superstitious neighbors. You put cursed bodies as far down as possible, that’s common knowledge. You’re gonna hit six feet before you get to bones, boys.”

“You sure you don’t want help?” Loretta asked, looking bored.

“Let’s give it a few more hours, okay?” Sam asked gently, grunting with the effort.

“That’ll practically bring us to dawn,” she replied, affronted.

Dean barked a laugh and said, “Exactly. Don’t worry, sweetheart. We got this.”

Raylan was cradling his head in his hands, knowing any attempt he could give to grave-digging at that point would be hopelessly useless. He let himself sink into untying the knot of horrific and terrifying experiences he’d had that night so far. It wasn’t until sometime later that he looked back up and fear struck at his heart one more time.

Loretta was sitting, knees tucked to her chin again, shivering quietly, and her lips going just a little bit blue. Her eyes looked dull and she wasn’t watching the woods anymore.

“You cold, honey?” Raylan asked, loud enough for the boys to hear and the sound of their digging ceased immediately.

She nodded, rocking a bit with her shivers.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

She looked at him in sort of a surprised way. Her teeth chattered so much she could barely speak. “Aren’t… you… cold too?”

He wasn’t, not cold in the way she was cold. He looked down at the iron in his hand.

“After your connection to the adultery, Raylan, she’s the weakest of us,” he heard Sam say quietly. He didn’t look up, not wanting Loretta to realize they were talking. “Dean and I have protection against this kind of thing. And Boyd’s… a much stronger force.”

“Shit,” he said, still looking at the iron. “Boyd,” he called loudly. “Have you found a body?”

There was a pause, and no one moved. Raylan lifted his gaze to Loretta, small and terrified, and he decided what he was going to do.

“Yeah,” came Boyd’s voice from the shack, not very loud, but still audible. It sounded like he was straining for something. “I can’t quite get to it though. The wall’s collapsed over there. But I can see it. You gentleman feel like burning a house down?”

“Not until we get to these two over here,” Dean shouted and his face finally betrayed some fear, after all that had happened.

“You got anything else like this in your bags?” Raylan asked, shifting the iron poker from his right to his left hand.

“No,” Dean said quietly. “No, man, we… we’re not used to so many on a hunt. Listen, we can still—”

“Shut up, Dean,” Raylan growled, then raised his voice again, “Boyd, don’t let me near that body. I don’t care what you have to do.”

“Raylan, what…“ Boyd shouted back, but Raylan ignored him and the protests of both Winchesters. He got up, wincing at the pain in his ankle, and approached Loretta. She stared at him, wide-eyed as he spoke, indicating the iron in his hand, “You get away from me, fast, once I let go of this, okay?”

“No, Raylan, please,” she begged. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to—”

“We don’t know that,” he said and pressed the iron into her shaking hands.

Loretta clutched at it, crying in earnest now and Raylan put his best face on for her while he still could. “Get back, honey, I meant it.”

“Around this way,” Dean urged and Raylan looked over, backing up slowly away from the graves. Loretta scrambled up and ran to Dean’s side where Sam was also, his shotgun raised straight at Raylan. “You dick,” Dean said. “We coulda figured something else out.”

“Not fast enough for me,” Raylan said, trying to keep his breathing steady and trying not to wonder why nothing had happened yet. He heard Boyd emerge from the shack and walk slow around the corner of the house. Raylan imagined he had a shotgun pointed at his back. “Keep digging, assholes, I’m counting on that so my friend back here doesn’t have to shoot me up with your rock salt.”

“Oh, so we’re friends again, are we, Raylan?” Boyd asked.

Raylan wanted to answer, he really did, but as he turned to face Boyd he felt that freezing cold whoosh and that same roaring in his ears. He thought he screamed, but he couldn’t be sure and he fell to his hands and knees, all the strength escaping his limbs at once.

When he stood again, he was a different man.

He rolled his head across his shoulders, cracking his neck along the way, getting a feel for these new bones as the skinny man with the shotgun eyed him. He didn’t have a weapon, but he wasn’t real concerned. He had a body now and one that this man at least, he thought, would hesitate to shoot.  
“What’s your name?” the skinny man said.

He smiled, liking that these people seemed to be quick on the uptake. “I ain’t your friend,” he replied.

“I know,” the man said softly. “You got a name? My daddy’s stories never mentioned one. So it must not be real memorable. Do you remember it, asshole?”

“It ain’t that, for sure,” he chuckled. From behind him, he heard shoveling start up again.

“What is it?”

“I like your persistence, stranger,” he said and smiled at the man’s disturbed expression. “You’re good at this, you know? You keep a cool head, for all you hate it. I heard you say you’re scared. I was here then, too. Lurkin’ around your friend. He and I, we’re real similar.”

“You ain’t,” the man said simply. “What’s your name?”

He rifled around in his new head, Raylan’s head, and smiled again, making it wide and fierce. “It ain’t Crowder, if that’s what you’re worried about, Boyd. That maybe your daddy didn’t mention my name ‘cause his uncle or cousin got himself shot dead on account of another man’s woman? A real man of principles was your daddy, as long as it suited him, right? Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens remembers that. He remembers a lot of things.”

“Jesus,” one of the others behind him swore, but Boyd’s expression didn’t change at all.

Boyd did tighten his hold on that shotgun, though, so he knew he was gonna get somewhere eventually.  
“What’s your name? I gotta call you something, asshole, ‘cause I sure as shit ain’t gonna call you Raylan.”

“Oh, right, ‘cause you two are such _good friends_ ,” he replied, walking in a slow circle around the clearing towards front of the house. “Trading that woman, your _sister_ , between you like she was the queen of hearts in a game of gin. And puttin’ bullets in each other and each other’s kin, like they ain’t nothin’ but a little sprinkle of rain.” He smiled when the word ‘kin’ got a reaction and decided to keep on that trail.

The others were still at his back but he was still within their line of sight, maybe ten feet from the front-side corner of the cabin. Boyd followed him with the barrel of that gun, taking his steps one foot over the other, real slow, real careful.

“You think he don’t know, Boyd, that he don’t hate you for draggin’ his family into shit you yourself barely got a right to? If you were half so good at this business you got going as you think you are Helen would still be alive. You let Dickie goddamn Bennett get one up on you. You think Raylan has any respect for you left after a mistake like that? Let alone anything like friend—”

“Shut up,” the girl finally screamed and the smaller brother, Dean, was the one to hold her back from doing something stupid. “Goddamn it, Boyd, tell him to shut the fuck up.”

He smiled at her and tilted his head jauntily, but quickly moved his eyes back to Boyd, who asked again, voice low and dangerous, “What’s your name?”

“Why do you think knowing it’s gonna make a difference?” He liked playing this game quite a bit and he had time, so he thought he’d drag it out a little.

Boyd stopped moving for a minute and carefully scrutinized him. “Why aren’t you worried about the boys finding those bodies? You know what the plan is, right? You’ve got all of Raylan up inside that head.”

“You wanna know my name or why I got time to talk?” He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops on his pants, letting his fingers pass over the empty holster. He knew Raylan’s gun was with the girl, and smiled, knowing he had plenty of time to get what he wanted.

“How about both?” Dean called with that bite in his voice he liked to hear so much.

“He doesn’t think we’re gonna find the bodies, boys,” Boyd said suddenly. “If he thought that he’d have implemented some kind of plan by now.”

He smirked. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Some plan other than pissing me off,” Boyd replied with a smile, just as dangerous as his own.

“Maybe you and I are more alike than I thought, Boyd,” he said. “You certainly got my number.”

“Have I?” Boyd asked softly. “What’s your name then?”

Suddenly there was a scraping sound as a shovel hit wood. “We got it,” the taller brother, Sam, shouted and he grinned.

“You’re out of time, douchebag,” Dean crowed and Boyd watched him grinning.

“Are there two boxes, boys? Or more than one body in a box?” Boyd called to them, not taking his eyes off him.

They heard a cracking sound and the girl gave a little gagging noise before Dean said, “Shit. She’s... the woman’s not here. Shit.”

Boyd raised his chin in some kind of small defiance and he found in Raylan’s memories that it was a common gesture, one the man remembered fondly.

“One of you, burn that body before Jeffries comes back and complicates things,” Boyd ordered. “The other, take Loretta and find that goddamn woman.”

He remembered Raylan always liked how Boyd took charge. No fuss, no fighting. Boyd knew what to do and how to tell people to do it. “There were so many things he liked about you,” he told Boyd. “And you ruined it. With your bigotry and your thievery and your religion. With everything he tried not to be and everything you became anyway. What makes you think you can ever get back that day at the mine? You know the one I’m thinking of. No matter how many times you save that man’s ass, no matter how many he times he saves yours, do you really think it’ll ever be the same?”

Jeffries’ body was in flames now, salted like the earth he came from, and he felt the absence of the man’s spirit, which had quickly outgrown its welcome in this over-crowded little place. He wanted to laugh at the idea that they’d ever find poor Maggie’s bones but thought that might be going a bit too far. Dean followed where Sam and the girl had gone, trying to search her out, but he knew they wouldn’t get to her. Not before he had his say.

“My name’s Landon, by the way,” he said. “Amos Landon. I ground deep miners like you boys and that cock Jeffries into the dirt in my day and liked it. Those company men paid me extra to make sure their mine didn’t go the way of the unions and I did my job well until a little side pussy put a bullet in my gut. The cunt let me bleed out with a sock stuffed in my mouth while her neighbors and the law walked across my shallow grave.”

“And then she hung herself,” Boyd finished for him. “If they didn’t bury her, they must’ve left her where she hung. I wouldn't be surprised either, not with a bad luck place like this. They probably kept clear of your little home here for years after, decades even.”

Amos sniffed at Boyd and spat at the ground. “So?”

“Boys,” Boyd called back to the brothers, “Look for a place tall enough to hang a body. She ain’t buried, she’s still hanging.” He smiled like he’d just won, but Amos knew they still had to find it. He could still work things out.

Suddenly the Winchesters both let out loud curses and he heard ghost Maggie’s screech of defiance. She was never as articulate as he after death, but the truth was, he didn’t like her much when she was talkin’ anyway. He did a couple little side steps forward, towards the doorway, trying to get a better view inside the house and Boyd moved with him, trying to maneuver for the same thing.

A shot rang out again, but Amos heard her yell and knew they must have missed. There, he saw her through the window, lurching and lunging towards the girl.

“Loretta, you get out of there,” Boyd called, but something must have been betrayed on Amos’ face because he followed that quickly with, “Wait, no. Stay there, honey. Can you keep out of her way? Just swing that iron around if she comes near.”

“I got it, Boyd,” the girl sassed. Amos would have smacked her for that tone.

“Ha!” Dean crowed again and Amos heard the scraping sound of wood on wood. He must have slid open the moonshine cupboard, tucked flat and invisible into the wall, where Maggie had hung herself. “Got you, bitch.” There was another sound, the tearing of rope past Amos’ field of vision and a thunk as her goddamn body hit the ground followed immediately by another shot. He saw her go up again like she had in the clearing. “Showed us right where to look,” he heard Dean muse.

“Stupid bitch,” Amos spat. Filling Raylan’s body with all his anger, he surged forward, too fast for Boyd to get off more than a wide shot at him. He thundered through the doorway, past where the Winchesters were already scattering their destructive salt and oil onto his goddamn grave. “You sons of bitches,” he cursed and grabbed at Loretta, who screamed and swung at him with that iron. He feinted backwards and let her momentum carry her past him, spinning her around by her arm, seizing her rough at the collar and wrapping his arm around her neck. She choked and struggled, but in the end she went with him out the door.

“You stupid fucking cunt,” he kept on yelling at Maggie, “I had this for you. I had it all planned out. The man for me, the girl for you, and we’d walk off this mountain together. And what do you do? You ruin it, like you ruined everything else. You’d better get your sweet ass back here this minute or I will put a bullet in your only shot at life again. Jesus knows, you ain’t gonna get another chance like this without me.”

“And where do you think you’re going?” Boyd asked, shotgun raised back up, presumably with two more in the barrel.

Amos pulled the gun out of the pocket that Raylan knew it had been in and put it up to the girl’s temple. “I’m gonna put my woman in this child, then I’m gonna shoot all three of you sons of bitches and walk down the mountain back to the car. I’m gonna live Raylan Givens’ sweet, sweet life and take another one as soon as it suits me.”

“You talk a big game, Amos Landon,” Boyd said calmly.

“You should know, asshole. You thinkin’ you’re gonna stop me? Can’t shoot me up with that poison if I’ve got this gun against her head.” The girl herself wasn’t crying at all, which was fine by Amos, but she was holding herself very still, very rigid.

Boyd just smiled and Amos didn’t see it coming when he lunged forward, flipping the shot gun over in his hands and slamming the butt of it right into Amos’ shoulder. His grip on the gun and the girl loosened and both fell away from him as he stumbled back with a ground out curse. He saw the girl scoop up the weapon fast in her little hands and turn it on him, even as he fell backwards into the waiting arms of Sam, the giant brother, who started dragging him away from the house.

Maggie chose that moment to reappear. Somehow bereft of her legs, she flew from the creek in a kind of fast hover, going straight for the girl.

“Boyd,” one of the Winchesters yelled and the man took the shot. She screamed once more, and in it he heard all the passion and fear she’d carried with her as a living woman. The holler rang with it and the sound mingled with his frustrated curses until he couldn’t distinguish them from each other any longer.

“Dean,” Sam shouted towards the house. “Light it up!”

He heard the son of a bitch’s gleeful laugh and the strike of his lighter. Dean sprinted out of the house and skidded to a halt right in front of Amos, where he was struggling against Sam’s vice grip. He grabbed Amos’ by the hair and pulled his gaze up to meet his and said, “Suck it, dickwad. Tell ‘em down there Dean Winchester says ‘fuck you.’”

He had just enough time to hear Sam reprove, “Real mature, Dean ,” before he felt that heat burn him up from the outside, sinking down into his bones and his belly, faster than he’d ever thought it would be.

He heard a scream of pain and terror, felt it tear and claw out of his ragged throat, and knew it for his own as well as another man’s.

His body went limp as a ragdoll and when Raylan opened his eyes he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. As his hazy vision cleared, he saw Boyd’s scared-shitless face hovering over him. He reached up and Boyd caught his hand as he mumbled, “Did you pull me out of the black again, Boyd?”

He thought he heard Boyd choke out something or other, but he was fading fast and soon everything went dark, black as the mine and the coal, but this time, it seemed much more peaceful.

  
His dreams were quiet for a while, until they were full of a man named Amos and the foul thoughts that came with him. There was a soft hand across his brow and he heard a low voice say, “You’re all right, Raylan,” and his dreams were quiet again.

Raylan woke to the sound of a high wailing voice and some low, bluesy guitar riffs. He shifted, clutching his aching head and groaning before any other thought struck him, “Anything but Robert Plant, _please_ ,” and discovered he was in the back of a moving car and his head was pillowed on someone’s lap.

He stiffened, somehow knowing it was Boyd and then realizing he did not have anything close to the strength he needed to get the hell off him.

“You’re not a fan of the Zep?” Dean Winchester asked from the driver’s seat.

The music was unceremoniously switched off, to Dean’s protests, and Loretta said, from the front middle seat, “I got it, Raylan.”

“Thank you, honey,” Raylan mumbled into Boyd’s knees. He didn’t even want to turn and look at the man as he asked, “Do I get an explanation for this?”

He heard the smile in Boyd’s voice. “Depends on how much of one you need, Raylan. What do you remember? What do you want to know?”

Raylan sighed. “I remember most of it, not much of the end, I’d guess. You burned the place down? And all the bodies?”

“We did.”

Raylan found himself relaxing at the news, though he was fairly certain they wouldn’t have gotten out of there without finishing the job. “And where are we going now?” he asked.

“Back to our vehicles at the reserve parking. You were out for the walk back to the boys’ car, but we’ve only been drivin’ for a few minutes.” Boyd’s voice was quiet, like he could tell how much Raylan’s head was hurting.

“Yeah, and we had to take turns hauling your carcass of that mountain, by the way. You’re welcome,” Dean said loudly.

“Okay,” Raylan replied uncertainly, still seeming to have some trouble with the basic reasoning of his current situation. “But why am I in your lap?”

“You think I want your boots on my legs?” Boyd asked laughing. “This ain’t no station wagon, Raylan, it’s a ’67 Impala. Even those don’t have quite enough room to let you spread yourself out. You could get off, if you want.”

Raylan huffed. “No, I can’t. Probably can’t drive very far either. I feel like I been run over a few times.”

“I can imagine,” Boyd said softly and it was then that Raylan’s phone rang.

“Shit,” Raylan swore. “Boyd, it’s in my coat pocket, can you see who it is?”

There was some shifting and some fumbling and in a moment, Boyd answered him, “Art Mullen.”

“Shit,” Raylan said as he attempted, with some success, to roll over. He met Boyd’s eyes and held out his hand. “That’s my boss.”

“I remember,” Boyd said, handing the phone to him.

He clicked the button and croaked, “Hey, Art,” into the receiver.

“Raylan,” Art’s voice came loud with suppressed anger through the line. “I’ve been playing phone tag with the Lexington, Harlan, and State police departments as well as two extremely pissed off women for most of the night. Now, you better give me a damn good reason that you and that child both were unreachable for eight hours straight or I will personally fire your ass and recommend someone bring you up on charges of kidnapping. Also, you’re late for work.”

“Art, listen,” Raylan groaned.

“Wait,” the man interrupted, “I know that tone. Did you get shot tonight, Raylan? How on earth did you manage that?”

“I like this guy,” Raylan heard Dean say, and realized the car was virtually silent, so it was real easy to make out everything Art was saying.

“No, Art, I did not get shot. I got… Well, it’s a long story. There was just some trouble out in the woods with another group of hikers. Everyone’s okay and Loretta is fine. She’s here with me, and I’ll have her call Jenny ASAP, all right?” He looked over and saw Loretta peeking over the back of the front seat at him. He nodded and she fished out her own phone.

“If everyone’s okay, Raylan, why do you sound like you’ve been hit by a truck? Do you need a hospital? Are you driving right now? Why is it that I feel like you need these basic rules of self preservation explained to you?”

“Bet you can’t wait ‘til I’m gone, then. You can get yourself a Deputy who doesn’t have trouble ridin’ on his back like a monkey,” Raylan was too tired to keep the defeated tone from his voice. He felt Boyd shift beneath him and looked up to concerned eyes. “No, I’m not driving. And I’ll be taking the day off. No hospital.”

“All right,” Art said and Raylan couldn’t distinguish worry from disappointment as he said, “We’ll talk tomorrow. Get that girl home and take care of yourself.” They clicked off without saying goodbye.

The car was silent for just a moment until Jenny picked up on Loretta’s call. Raylan listened while Loretta assured the frantic woman that she was fine, no, Raylan hadn’t done anything to her, no, she’d been fine the whole time. It was just an injury on the trail, to Raylan, not her. Yes, he was fine now, and she was sorry they’d worried her. No, she didn’t think they’d be going hiking again anytime soon.

Raylan felt his eyelids going heavy along with all his limbs as the desire for sleep flooded through him. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to dream again, such a short time after waking. But he found he could barely fight it off.

“What else can we listen to?” Loretta asked quietly. “We gotta drive ‘round the mountain, right? Gonna be at least another half hour.”

Sam started down the list of classic rock band and album names and with each one, Raylan heard the clicking of cassette cases. When he said, “Neil Young, Harvest,” Raylan raised his hand slightly.

“That one,” Boyd said before Raylan could get his mouth working. They put it on without saying anything and the first song was one Raylan didn’t remember right away. It had a strong beat though and for some reason Neil Young’s voice was more rich, more comforting than Plant’s had been, even though Raylan had spent a fair share of his youth listening to Zeppelin. “I used to hate Neil Young,” he sighed, letting his arm fall over the seat and down to the floor.

“What changed?” Boyd asked.

Raylan thought about it and blinked sleepily a few times before he answered, “Got older, I guess.”

Boyd laughed softly and put his hand across Raylan’s back, “Is that all?”

Boyd’s hand was warm and as confusingly comforting as the music was, so Raylan didn’t shift at all or ask him to move it. “You’ll wake me when we’re there?”

“I should hope so,” Boyd replied. “We got to get you in your car.”

“Boyd, I can’t drive. Not today.”

“I know, Raylan, you said that before. I called Ava on the walk back. She’s gonna come get me in Lexington in a few hours. We’ll take the girl home first and I’ll bring you over to your place.” Boyd’s voice flowed over Raylan’s uncertainties and worries, and he told himself it was bone deep exhaustion and not a returning trust he’d felt once before, and welcomed back again. He shook his head, not wanting to think about it.

“You’re all right, Raylan,” Boyd said and the song changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts:  
> \- I have three point five southern fried shows on my list-- Give me something dripping with the vibe of the American South  
> \- In that same vein, I would love something steeped in American folklore.  
> \- I like stories that deal with close familial relationships. NOT incest-- just deep love and bond between family members.  
> \- I also love fic with main characters (preferably the male main characters) having to deal with children. They don't have to be kids related to them. Just kids in general :D  
> \- SPN/Justified-- Boys love their guns. So do some girls. Let's go hunting!


End file.
